George Osborne defended the Conservative Party's NHS record Credit: PA

Following the publication of NHS England figures that show A&E departments last week failed to meet their target of seeing 95% of patients within four hours, George Osborne defended the Conservative Party's NHS record.

Speaking to the BBC, the chancellor said he had put an extra £2 billion into the system.

There are more people than ever working in our health service, we are treating more people than ever, the people within the health service are doing a brilliant job and we are backing them up with increases in the amounts of money going to the health service.

That's not something that has been easy to do, we have had to make difficult decisions - as people are aware - elsewhere in government budgets in order to prioritise the health service.

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Responding to the publication of accident and emergency figures from NHS England today that show a failure to meet four-hour waiting targets last week, Labour described it as the "worst in living memory" for the NHS.

These figures show the Tory A&E crisis is intensifying and putting thousands of patients at risk.

Last week was the worst week the NHS has experienced in living memory.

Over 16,000 people had to wait on trolleys in corridors - a staggering 29 per cent increase on the previous worst two weeks earlier.

David Cameron's failure to produce a plan to deal with this cannot carry on. Their complacency is exposing far too many vulnerable people to too much risk.

The NHS 'will continue to be under pressure for the next few weeks' Credit: PA

As NHS England revealed that accident and emergency departments had last week failed to meet targets to see 95% of patients within four hours, it warned that the service would continue to be under pressure for the next few weeks.

Dr Sarah Pinto-Duschinsky said that the flu season meant the NHS had been treating "more patients than than ever before."

Last week, 407,239 patients went to A&E - almost 4,000 more than the previous week and an increase of almost 20,000 on the same week a year ago.

The NHS continues to face unprecedented pressures on its frontline services - with almost 20,000 more A&E attendances than last year - and more than 105,000 people admitted to hospital which is one of the highest figures on record.

The extra £700 million invested has bought 700 more doctors, 4,500 more nurses, creating over 5,000 more beds.

Flu is now at its highest peak for the last three winters which is one of the reasons why over the New Year holiday we continued to treat more patients than ever before.

This means the NHS will continue to be under pressure for the next few weeks. Even at this stage of the winter it is still worth people getting their flu jab if they have not done so, and get advice from their pharmacist for colds, coughs and minor conditions.